


N'Tlic

by pythagorean_identity



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Altered States, Blood and Gore, Bloodchild AU, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, I G U E S S, Other, Oviposition, but like. vaguely., i have literally no excuses for this but it exists now, lust is an alien, minor Roy Mustang/Lust (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 19:22:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pythagorean_identity/pseuds/pythagorean_identity
Summary: A vague Bloodchild AU/fusion in which Roy becomes the (unwilling) host to a brood of alien eggs.





	N'Tlic

**Author's Note:**

> You don't really have to have read Bloodchild, but it's actually a really good short story by Octavia Butler, and I'd recommend giving it a read if you had the guts to click this fic and haven't read Bloodchild yet. I probably messed up some of the really excellent worldbuilding, and it's best to go into Bloodchild somewhat blind. It's got a lot of similar content (blood, gore, alien egglaying), so warning for that. http://boblyman.net/englt392/texts/bloodchild.pdf
> 
> Roy calls Kimblee "Solf" because of setting. People would be on a first-name basis in the Preserve, or at least, I'd imagine so.

Roy knew the use the Tlic had for terrans. He’d heard enough about it from his sisters and brothers growing up. Heard it from friends, seen the diagrams. He had been glad that someone had already been selected from his family, and that it wouldn’t be him. 

The Tlic that now was coiled around him, murmuring apologies, and holding him as still as possible even though he’d already been stung enough to be unable to do much more than lie there, was a surprise. And a very unwelcome one. Even against the drowsy feeling of Tlic’s sting, he could feel the ovipositor deep in his guts. It was more concerning that he physically couldn’t panic, that his body was unable to speed up his heart rate and breathing, that he couldn’t struggle. He lay there, head lolling against the soft, cool belly of the Tlic, his thoughts in a sluggish turmoil. 

This wasn’t supposed to be happening to him. Sure, T’Marr had said Roy had a good body for it, it wasn’t his future to be N’Tlic. Perhaps that was why this one had chosen him, out of everyone else that could have passed by. It wasn’t fair. 

When Roy was sure he was either going to pass out, or fall asleep, there was a dull ache, and the Tlic uncoiled herself from him, gently laying Roy down in the grass. He felt her lick at the wound in his side. The saliva would stop the bleeding for a while. 

“I just want the best for my children. You look old enough to understand that,” the Tlic said, before hurrying, serpentine, away. 

It felt like a bad dream. He’d had enough, similar to this one, when he was younger. And waking up in his own bed the next day, sun streaming through the windows, made it feel even more so, but the lingering ache in his side told a different story.

“I… fell funny,” he whispered to himself, as if that might make it true. “I went out and got stupid drunk with Maes and Riza, and tripped like a fool on my way back. I landed on a rock.”

It hurt to sit up, hurt to limp to the bathroom, and hurt pull up his shirt. There was a thick square of gauze bandaged to his side.

Not a bad dream.

The room spun, and he gripped the edge of the sink. He couldn’t panic then, but he could now. He couldn’t really remember what the Tlic had looked like, not specifically. She was dark, but most Tlic were dark. It hadn’t been T’Marr, or any of the Tlic that Roy knew, because they all already had someone to… to lay their eggs in.

Suddenly, Roy was on the bathroom floor. Eggs. A Tlic had lain eggs in him. He was N’Tlic now. Like his brother, like Riza’s father. Riza’s father, who had died.

There was a gentle knock on the bathroom door.

“Roy? Are you alright?”

It was his brother, the one who’d been N’Tlic. 

“Fine,” Roy croaked out, even though it was a lie. He could barely get enough air to stay in his lungs long enough to speak. 

“T’Marr brought a sterile egg, she says it’s for you. It’ll help your… it’ll help you heal.”

Roy’s fingers crept from where they’d been clutching at his stomach towards his gauze-wrapped side. He wanted to accept it, he knew the egg would be good for him, but the feeling after would be too much like getting stung. He didn’t want to feel that helpless again, not so soon. Roy didn’t think he could handle that.

“Roy?”

He couldn’t fall apart like this. He forced himself to steady his breath, stand up, and open the door. His brother looked concerned, but it seemed to lessen when Roy managed a smile.

“You’re right, the egg will help. Should I share? Surely the others will want some, too,” he said. 

“No, they’re not-, no, T’Marr said it’s all yours, and that whichever idiot Tlic- I mean-” His brother stammered and stumbled over his words, as if trying to avoid the subject that Roy was now N’Tlic.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to tiptoe around it,” Roy said, accepting the offered egg. His stomach twisted. Eggs similar to this one were now attaching to blood vessels inside his own body, tiny Tlic beginning to grow, feeding off his own nutrients.

“How did I get I home last night?” Roy asked, carefully sitting down on his bed and biting open the egg, it’s gooey inside oozing into his mouth. Already he could feel it dulling the pain in his side and his mind. It wasn’t so bad, after all. It was hard to be panicked in the egg-dreams. 

“Auntie Christmas got concerned when you didn’t come home. And before you protest, yes, we’re all aware you’re an adult and perfectly capable of fending for yourself, but there’d been rumors of some Tlic sneaking into the Preserve, so we went to check and see if you were with Riza or Maes, but they said they’d last seen you on your way home, and so there was a whole search. We found you lying in the grass a street over. At least the Tlic had enough sense to make sure you didn’t bleed out, but-”  
Roy’s brother bit off his triade, but Roy was too high off the egg to care.

“She hadn’t been smart enough to leave me some of these?” He held up his half-eaten egg. “Wasn’t smart enough to just wait her turn, or find some other animal to stick her fucking oviposit-”

“Roy!”

“Sorry. I think I’m going to sleep some more,” he said. “I’m not hungry.”

He tried to set the egg aside, but his brother grabbed his wrist.

“Finish it, then sleep. Your body needs it.”

“My body? Or their bodies?”

His brother’s face contorted with misery.

“This shouldn’t have happened, but you need to take care of yourself if you’re going to survive it.”

Roy squeezed the remaining goo into his mouth and swallowed it.

“Let me guess, make sure to eat my vegetables? Or perhaps a carnivorous diet so they can have that instead of my own insides?”

“Just sleep.”

Roy did, gladly.

There’s no visible difference between a N’Tlic and a regular person, at least to Terrans, and for that Roy was glad. The Tlic could tell, though their own strange, alien way. However, rumor of an N’Tlic who hadn’t been chosen properly, and the brief midnight search for Roy had gotten around, and it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. 

Security to the Preserve tightened. Tlic that saw Roy as he went about his business shook their heads sadly, or offered him their own sorts of comfort. Mainly consisting of offers to be the ones to remove the young Tlic from him once it was time. 

That had been a subject of much concern. Usually the Tlic who had lain the eggs was the one to remove their young once they hatched. A mother Tlic’s sting could act as an anesthetic to the N’Tlic without harming the young. Too much of the sting from any other would kill the babies. T’Marr was the obvious choice, as she was the Tlic that knew Roy the best, she’d been a part of the family for as long as anyone could remember. But a search for the Tlic that had snuck into the Preserve and laid her eggs in Roy had been started, both so she could be punished, and also so she could safely remove the young Tlic when it was time.

Roy didn’t particularly care for the safety of the young Tlic, as long as they were all removed, and didn’t eat their way out of him. 

It was how Riza’s father had died. One of the young Tlic had hatched, and ate its way up into his lung. It had been the first one to hatch, and Berthold had died before the rest had finished hatching. When the young Tlic were removed from his corpse, the one in his lung was discovered as the cause of his death. 

It was rare for something like that to happen, but it kept Roy up at night. He tried to act like nothing had happened, that nothing had changed, but people treated him differently once they found out he was that N’Tlic they had heard the rumors about. He was sick of it.

“So, you’re the unwilling N’Tlic.”

“Aren’t most N’Tlic unwilling?” Roy snapped, turning to the newcomer.

It was Solf. The man had a smug expression on his face, like he knew his words were going to upset Roy, and that was why he said them. The two had never gotten along. Thankfully, they lived on the complete opposite sides of the Preserve from each other, and rarely crossed paths.

“Not in quite the same way, don’t you think? Or we would all be N’Tlic. It was like that, once, before the Preserve. They would get us high on sterile eggs and keep us penned together like animals, perfect hosts for their young,” he said, leaning against the table Roy sat at. He glanced languidly down at the anatomy book Roy had been reading. 

“Got the jitters for your little ones’ birthday? I must admit, I was rather excited myself.”

Shocked, Roy stared at Solf.

“You were N’Tlic?”

“A few years ago, yes. I’m sure I’ll be asked to do it again soon enough,” he said, as if the Tlic might have been asking him to go fetch some trivial item rather than to give over his body. 

It was hard to imagine. But then again, half the people Roy talked to could be N’Tlic and he’d have no way of knowing. The only reason people seemed to know about him was due to the unusual circumstances. 

“I’m sure you’ve been taking comfort in the fact that you’ll only have to be N’Tlic once,” he said, sliding down into a chair beside Roy. “Once they do catch the Tlic, she’ll never be let anywhere near the Preserve, or even a male Tlic, again. Odds are she’ll turn up around when they hatch.”

At that, he poked at Roy’s stomach, and Roy slapped away Solf’s hand.

“Don’t touch me.”

As if encouraged, Solf reached for Roy’s stomach again.

“Have you tried to find where they are? It could be helpful.”

Roy couldn’t count the time he’d lain awake at night, staring at the ceiling and feeling at his stomach, trying to decide if what he was feeling was one of the eggs, or just the natural shape of his organs. Organs that could end up food for the young Tlic if he wasn’t careful.

“That’s none of your business,” he growled, instead.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve received similar offers, but unless you’d rather not have alien hands on your edible bits, I am rather familiar with the procedure.”

Scandalized, Roy snapped his book shut and stood up.

“And have yours instead? At least if I let a Tlic do it I won’t have to feel the damn thing pawing through my guts. Good day.” 

He could feel Solf’s eyes on his back as he walked away, but he didn’t entertain the thought at all.

Not until he woke up in the middle of the night, a few weeks later, with a stomach ache more painful than anything else he’d ever experienced. Swallowing bile that crept up his throat, he scrambled to the bathroom, vomited, and then felt movement under his shirt. The damn eggs. Of course.

If he was this sick already, then he had to find T’Marr, she’d be able to get the newly hatched Tlic out of his stomach and-

He paused in the hallway, leaning against the wall. He could hear arguing from downstairs.

“-never would have lead you here if I knew you were her!”

That was Maes, what was he doing here?

“Please, nobody else will be able to help him, they’re my children.”

“Which you should have known better than to lay in a Terran!”

It was her. Roy allowed himself a moment of complete panic and horror, before shoving it all out of his mind. He had to come up with a plan. He certainly wasn’t going to let her be the one to tear him open and reach around in his guts. But then again, her sting would be the most effective in relieving his pain and the horrible nausea. 

A foolish, dangerous plan sprang into his head. He didn’t like it, but he preferred it to any other option he had at the moment. 

Finally able to move again, he crept back to the bathroom, took as many pain pills as he dared, then made his way downstairs. 

T’Marr was there too, in the kitchen with Maes, his aunt, and the Tlic whose eggs were now hatching in his belly. They all stared at him for a stunned moment.

“They’re hatching, aren’t they?” Maes said.

Roy realized he had been clutching at his stomach. He hadn’t meant to.

“Please, they’re my children.”

The Tlic, who Roy noticed was an unusually dark brown, turned back to T’Marr, fidgeting with her forelimbs.

“Only if he’s ok with it,” T’Marr said. She didn’t look pleased, but the other Tlic scuttled over to Roy, keeping low to the ground, as if trying to look as unthreatening as possible. 

She raised her tail, the stinger promising relief, but just looking at it made Roy’s head spin. Hesitantly, he extended one of his arms, and she stung him, once, and whipped her tail back to sting him again, but before she could, Roy kicked her in the face. As she reeled back, stunned, he jumped over her, and dashed out the door into the night. He had to get as far as he could before the sting really kicked in. So far, he could only feel his pain and nausea easing, but soon, he knew, the venom would relax him enough that he wouldn’t be able to run.

And he did have to run. He cut through the fields of growing crops, already feeling himself begin to slow, and hoped that adrenaline would keep him moving until he reached his destination. The doctors, the doctors could help him, they could cut the hatching Tlic out of him…

He slowed, stopping at the edge of the field. The same sort of strange, muted urgency he’d felt when the Tlic had lain her damn eggs in him was back. He knew he had to keep going, had to keep running, but his limbs felt leaden. He wanted to curl up in the grass…

But nobody would be able to find him there, and the sting would wear off, and he’d be sick again, and the hatchlings would eat their way out of him. A pathetic end.

With a tremendous effort, Roy staggered forward, climbed over the low fence, and continued down the road. The doctors. He just had to make it to the doctors, and then he’d be safe. 

Just a little further. Just…

An unseen pothole sent Roy sprawling gracelessly in the road. After the brief shock of it, the sting numbed any pain, he slowly began trying to get up. What should have been a simple task suddenly seemed impossible.

“Come on. Roll over, then get your legs under yourself, you piece of shit,” he muttered, but he barely had the strength to push himself up off the hard-packed dirt, much less sit up. He propped himself up, somewhere between lying on his side and sitting upright, and tried to collect himself. 

“Too sick to move?”

Had Roy not been under the influence of the sting, his head would have snapped up to meet the source of the voice. As it was, he slowly peered up at the approaching figure.

“What are you doing out here, Solf?” Roy growled, and the man stopped right before him.

“I couldn’t sleep, and desired a walk. And good for you that I did.”

“I don’t need your help.”

Solf grinned, his teeth a bright white in the dim light of the streetlamps.

“It seems to me that you very much do. You’ve managed to go exactly the wrong way. The Rockbells are on the other side of the preserve.”

Despair crept up Roy’s throat. 

“Then I’ll go-”

“You can’t even walk anymore. I told you, I am familiar with the procedure. If you’re sick enough that you can’t walk, it’s absolutely vital that you get the hatchlings removed as soon as possible. You don’t want to lose any more of your innards than you already have,” Solf said, and then extended his hand. Roy eyed it warily.

“You really don’t have any other options, unless you’d like me to call-”

Roy grabbed Solf’s hand before he could finish his sentence.

“Call the Rockbells. You can start the procedure yourself but you better call the doctors before you cut me open. I don’t want any more Tlic digging through my guts, either,” he said as Solf pulled him upright. “I’ve already been stung, but I’m not sure how long it will last.”

Roy’s legs barely worked, and Solf had to half-cary him. Thankfully, they weren’t far from Solf’s house. Solf helped him sit down at the kitchen table.

“Think you can wait a moment? I’ve got to-”

“I don’t care, just call the Rockbells,” Roy said. 

“If you can manage getting onto the table in the meantime, then?” Solf said, filling a pot with water, and putting it on the stove. Roy watched as he put a few knives into the water. Sterilizing, Roy’s sluggish brain supplied. Once Solf left, Roy hauled himself up onto the kitchen table with difficulty, and listened to Solf talking to someone over the phone in the next room. Hopefully the Rockbells. 

When Solf returned, he was dragging the carcass of an achti. It had already been cut open, and Roy stared at it, wide-eyed. He’d be like that in a few minutes. Guts hanging out, bleeding onto Solf’s kitchen floor.

“The young Tlic need somewhere to go,” Solf said, letting the dead creature drop to the floor. “And I don’t have a Tlic’s dainty claws, so this may be a bit… interesting. Hopefully they don’t try to eat me. Now, lie back.”

Roy slowly lay back on the table.

“I’m going to tie you down. This isn’t going to be a pleasant procedure. You’ll need to be secured,” Solf explained, using Roy;s own belt to secure his hands to the legs of the table. “Hopefully, you’ll just pass out when I open you up.”

“That would be idea,” Roy mumbled, letting his head fall back against the hard wood of the table. Solf’s hands were oddly gentle as he unbuttoned and pushed Roy’s shirt up to bare his stomach. Roy lifted his head again to look down at himself, half expecting to see movement under his skin, the hatchling Tlic beginning to eat their way to freedom. But his chest and stomach looked the same as they always did.

Sof pressed a now-gloved hand just to the side of Roy’s navel, and then the other, feeling for the Tlic. It didn’t hurt, just felt… uncomfortable.

Then, a knife pressed into him, just above his left hip, slicing carefully, opening his belly low, close to where the waistband of his pants would lie. Where were his pants? It hurt. He could barely think. He didn’t want to watch, and thankfully, he didn’t have the energy to keep his head up to do so. His head fell back with a thump. The pain of the back of his head connecting with the table couldn’t compare at all to getting cut open, and having the would spread…

No wonder Sof had tied him down, because he was trying to struggle away, even through the sting.

“You’re doing so well,” Solf said softly and Roy grit his teeth as Solf reached into the cut. “I can see them. They’re a dark red, darker than your insides, but red from your blood.”

He could feel something pulling inside of him, feel Solf’s hand withdrawing, and he thought, foolishly, that it might be over. The lights above him swam as he felt Solf reach in again. Of course it wasn’t over. Who knew how many eggs, how many Tlic, were in his belly? Solf ran an almost comforting hand over his thigh, but his touch was sticky with blood.

Time felt dark and flexible. Roy faded in and out of consciousness, between blissful, unfeeling sleep, and the agony of an alien cesarian. Solf spoke to him, and maybe it was simply that Roy was woozy with pain, but he sounded oddly sincere, and strangely sweet. The Rockbells showed up, and ended the brief bouts of pain.

When Roy woke up, he was in an unfamiliar bed, an unfamiliar room. His stomach ached, but he didn’t feel the nausea anymore.

He survived.

Roy struggled to sit up, sending pain flaring up his torso. Light leaked in through the curtains, and a glass of water with a few pills beside it sat on the bedside table. There was no clock, no way to tell what time it was, other than Day. Roy wasn’t even sure what day it was. A wave of panic hit him.

Where was he? Did anyone knew where he was?

Roy had ran without explaining his plan to anyone. His family was no doubt tearing up the preserve looking for him if they didn’t already know. 

Perhaps he was with the Rockbells. That would make the most sense. Or perhaps he was still at Solf’s house. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he instantly wished that he wasn’t. Bleeding all over the other man’s kitchen table probably counted as overstaying his welcome. Besides, Roy wasn’t sure he was at all ready to ever face Solf again. 

And thankfully, it was the Rockbell’s house, and the next few days of Roy’s recovery were plagued by three blonde, curious children. Roy swore to himself many times to never, ever get hurt enough to need to go to the Rockbells again, because while their daughter was nice enough, her two little friends were both a pain to deal with. At least it was annoying 10 year olds and not Solf, he consoled himself, but as soon as he was cleared to walk, he went home to finish his recovery there.  
Life… continued, as well as it could. Roy had a rather nasty scar now, but it wasn’t the same kind of scar most former N’Tlic had, and Roy was never really one to go shirtless, anyways. The Tlic who had lain her eggs in Roy was punished, as would be expected, and security for entering the Preserve at night was increased, just to be sure that no others would get any ideas. Roy did his best to avoid running into Solf, but that wasn’t too hard.

After all, they frequented different places, and lived on opposite sides of the Preserve.

But the Preserve was only so big.

“It’s good to see you up and about again.”

Roy spun on his heel and found himself face to face with Solf.

The other man smiled when Roy stumbled for words for a brief moment.

“I never thanked you,” is what he settled on.

Solf laughed humorlessly.

“Don’t worry about it. You lived, that’s the important part. As did all of the Tlic grubs.”

He couldn’t help but cringe at that.

“It’s thanks to you that I survived. They would have eaten me alive if you hadn’t…”

A memory of one of Solf’s hands, wet with Roy’s blood, rubbing gentle circles on Roy’s thigh while the other reached into his belly, surfaced. Roy didn’t remember much of the procedure, and did his best not to. Why now, of all times, was he remembering something like that?

“You would have bled out without the Rockbells. I solved one problem, but created another,” Solf said, shrugging. “Although, if you ever do find yourself in need of my help again, or, well, you did look nice all tied down on my table.”

“I’m going to forget you said that,” Roy snapped, and Solf laughed again.

“You know where to find me.”

“Sure. If I ever need to pass out from the Tlic hatching in my belly again, I’ll be sure to do it near your house,” Roy said dryly.

“Would you offer the same?”

“Are you asking because- your Tlic is actually present, it would be stupid to not have them take care of any hatchlings,” Roy said.

“I’m teasing. Have a nice day, Roy.”

Roy didn’t humor Solf with a reply, and simply continued on his way. There wouldn’t be a next time.


End file.
